Operator internet protocol (IP)-enabled set top box (STB) solutions are moving to provide whole-home IP-STB solutions. FIG. 1, for example, is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of a home network 100. The home network 100 may be configured, for example, to provide cable, off-air and Internet-based services to a home user. The home network 100 includes a plurality of terminals 102, 104 and 106 that share content via a plurality of physical (e.g., Ethernet) links 108 and logical (e.g., HomePlug AV (HPAV) or Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA)) links 1101-110n (hereinafter collectively referred to as “logical links 110”). The terminals include one or more home routers 102, one or more hubs 104 and one or more clients 1061-106n (hereinafter referred to as “clients 106”). Embodiments of hubs 104 may include, for example, tuners, off-air and cable interfaces and/or hard disks for receiving off-air and cable television, digital video recorder (DVR) and Internet content services. Embodiments of clients 106 may be configured as thin clients that receive streaming content from hubs 104. In addition, hubs 104 may stream content to each other. Other embodiments of clients 106 may contain tuners for off-air and/or cable input for streaming received content to a DVR in a hub 104 and receiving the streamed content back for “trick play” service.
In solutions such as that illustrated, clients STBs are typically expected to have multiple home networking interfaces, including at least one advanced home networking interface (e.g., HPAV or MoCA) that will activate upon installation of the client STB. For example, in FIG. 1, client 106n is connected to the router 102 over a logical link 110n. The client STB may further include an Ethernet interface that a user can connect to another home networking device (e.g., a hub STB and/or a home router or switch) at or after initialization. In FIG. 1, client 106n is additionally connected to the router 102 via a physical link 108n. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the architecture illustrated in FIG. 1 is merely one illustrative example of a home network.
Despite the number of home networking interfaces, it is expected that a client STB will only be able to support one active (i.e., available for data communication) home networking interface at a time, since a client STB is an end terminal and thus may not have the processing capacity for bridging between interfaces. As such, a decision must be made as to which one of the potentially numerous home networking interfaces should remain active. This decision is important, because a poor choice can lead to degraded AV streaming, or even isolation of the client STB from other terminals. Thus, it is desirable, if only one home networking interface may be selected to activate, that the best performing home networking interface is selected. Moreover, because a user may update the home network architecture at any time (e.g., by adding devices or connections), even after operator installation, dynamic reevaluation of this choice is often necessary to ensure that the active home networking interface is still the best performing home networking interface. Selecting the one home networking interface that performs better than all others may be very difficult when faced with a plurality of candidate home networking interfaces, however (especially in the case of a large home network which may have many home networking interfaces).
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a method and apparatus for optimizing home network interface selection in home networking applications.
To facilitate understanding, identical reference numerals have been used, where possible, to designate identical elements that are common to the figures.